Partners and Other Shift Mates
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: They stay there that way, until a knock on the glass warns them that someone from higher up on the line is coming around.


**A/N: Started out as a crack!fic pairing, and then muse decided it liked these two together, so you'll probably see more of them as a pairing, and that is all. Oh, yeah: I don't own H:LOTS. Set somewhere in between the season 5 episodes "Partners and Other Strangers" and "Strangers and Other Partners"**

* * *

He finds her sitting in the aquarium. 

Granted, it isn't the best place in the world for her to be sitting, considering that everyone can see inside, and it's usually where they put people to wait, whether it be for a family member that's been arrested, or to talk to whoever's running the latest case, or whatever, but still. He knows why she's there, and he knows why everyone has been steering clear of the aquarium, but what he doesn't get is why she has chosen this place to get away from it all. So he closes the door behind him, and leans against it, and when Kay finally looks up and notices him, she sighs. 

"Drew the short straw, huh, Meldrick?" she asks, in the way she has of sounding like she doesn't care when they all know she does. 

"No one had any straws to draw with," he replies. "How long you been in here?" 

She shakes her head. "You and everybody else in that squad room been watching," she says. "You know how long I've been in here." 

It's true, he does. But the fact remains that neither he nor any of the others really want to deal with the reason why she's in there and the reason why she's been sitting there for so long. There are papers spread out everywhere; Megan Russert made an appearance earlier and will likely do so again, but for the most part, what happens next is on Kay's shoulders. 

It has been twelve hours and counting since they got the news that Beau Felton's death was a murder, and not a suicide, and it's almost like the entire shift is waiting to see what Kay is going to do. Oddly enough, it doesn't settle well with him. 

"You know, you could've gone in the Box; done all this in there. No one would've bothered you," he says finally, and Kay sighs. 

"Yeah, until someone needed it for an interview, or an interrogation...I tell ya, Meldrick, every time we try to close any wound in this city, all it does is open up a brand new one." 

They are both used to this, sadly enough. They are both used to the fact that no matter how many murders they close, no matter how many names are in black on the board, or even in blue, there will always be at least ten more in red. Meldrick leaves off from leaning against the door and comes to sit in the empty place beside her. 

"You sure you wanna do this on your own?" he asks, because he knows exactly what she's doing, and gets the feeling that she doesn't _really_ want to do it. But they all know that Beth Felton _won't_ do it, and that Megan is too much in shock, so to speak, over what's happened to do much, so once again, it all falls back on Kay. 

"He was my partner, Meldrick," she tells him, quietly. "My _partner. _And all this time, I thought he was just slacking off, getting druink every chance he had to make it all go away, but it never really _goes _away..." 

She's right, it doesn't. He knows all too well what she's talking about, because they all noticed it, even Gee. And yet, none of them had bothered to do anything about it other than tell Felton off, tell him that maybe he wasn't good enough to be in Homicide anyway, or even to be a cop, and a whole lot of other things that they're all going to regret once it hits them, _really_ hits them, that he's gone. 

"We all know he wasn't dirty," he replies, after a moment. "Never mind Falsone, the hell does he know, anyway?" 

What neither Meldrick or Kay know at this point is that come this time next year, Falsone will be a member of the shift, and Kay will have been rotated into the fugitive squad. But the future has no bearing on them now, and the only thing that _does_ have any bearing is the fact that they have lost one of their own, again. Meldrick shifts slightly in the chair that he has taken up, thinking back on how it felt when they lost Crosetti, and how it affected him, in particular, because Crosetti had been _his_ partner, and it had hurt like hell. 

The faint smile that crosses Kay's face at this is almost worth the lame attempt at some kind of humor that doesn't _really_ help, but serves as some kind of distraction, at least, for a little while. 

"I talked about this with him, once, after Beth left," she admits, without looking him in the eye, because she thinks that if she dares to do so, she's going to cry, and that's the last thing she wants to do. "He wanted to know if I'd...take care of things if anything happened to him, and I promised I would." 

"Yeah, I told Crosetti the same thing, back in the day," Meldrick remarks, wryly. "Hell of a lot of good that one did. I couldn't even see something was wrong, and look what happened." 

A soft laugh escapes Kay as she shakes her head again. "Yeah, that's the stupid thing about it," she says. "Half the time, you can't even tell something's wrong, and then when you can...you don't know what to do about it." 

She wonders what would have happened if she'd known that Beau hadn't _really_ quit, hadn't _really_ left the department, and what would have happened if she'd known that Internal Affairs had sent him under. 

"I should've seen it," she says finally. "I should've known he wouldn't just stop talking to me out of nowhere, I mean...I've gotten pissed off at him so many times over all the time we were partners, and five minutes later, he's asking me for a pen, or a stick of gum, or _something..._" 

She trails off and gestures helplessly to everything she has around her: Beau's case files from before he was suspended, the open ones that will have to be reassigned, the closed ones that haven't been fully processed...the funeral plans. "And now look at this. Some bastards went and shot him, and now we have all of this to deal with, and you know, Meldrick, I just...I don't..." 

Again, he finds himself wondering why she chose to come and sit here in the aquarium, when she knows that everyone can see them. She looks down at everything again, blinking, and he pretends not to notice, because she has spent so long trying to prove herself as one of the guys without ever knowing that she doesn't really _have_ to that to acknowledge the fact that she's this close to crying would seem almost insulting to her. There is a long, almost awkward silence in which he hears the distinct sound of sniffling, but doesn't dare call her on it. 

"Guess I know how you were feeling then, huh?" she asks finally, ruefully and he turns to look at her. 

"Ain't ever gonna be easy," he tells her. "You lose someone like a partner...it never feels right afterwards, y'know? You look across the desk and you expect to see 'em sitting there, and then they're not..." He cuts himself off, knowing that saying this isn't going to help at all, and watches as Kay reaches up to wipe at her eyes, but pretends not to notice it. 

"I never actually thought I'd have to do it," she says. "All this time, we've been so damn lucky, and the minute I'm not keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get into anything..." 

He knows where she is going with this, and he shakes his head at her, having felt the same conflicting emotions when the shift lost Crosetti. "This ain't your fault," he says, gently, but firmly enough for her to know he means it. "Ain't none of us could have seen this comin', Kay, not even you." 

"I wish I had seen it," she says, almost inaudibly, without looking at him. "Maybe I could have stopped it, I mean, come on, Meldrick, Internal Affairs? That's just _askin'_ for trouble."

He knows what she means, but doesn't say anything as she goes on. 

"You know, I used to think that maybe we were invincible, kinda like nothing could take us down unless we wanted it to, and sometimes I still do, but that doesn't make any sense, 'cause if it worked that way, nothing would take us, but…" 

"Something always seems to," says Meldrick, and Kay nods, an exasperated sigh escaping her at she does. 

"I hate this," she says. "I hate the feeling of not knowing when I could have known, and knowing that come Friday, I'm gonna have to bury him, I'm gonna have to put him in the _ground_, Meldrick, and the last thing I said to him was that he was pretty much worthless." 

The papers slide from her lap, then, and she doesn't bother to pick them up, instead leaning down and burying her face in her hands. Meldrick hears sniffling again, but still doesn't say anything, unsure of how it will be taken if he does. 

"You tell anyone I sat in here and cried, Lewis, I swear…" she says, but he shakes his head, even though he knows she can't see him. 

"I wouldn't do that to you," he replies, and means it. He knows that the others are deliberately avoiding looking towards the aquarium, but even so, he looks behind his shoulder anyway to make sure of this. 

"They're watching us, aren't they?" she asks. 

"Nah," he says, "They got too much paperwork to do. Gee's getting on 'em about not doing it." 

"Figures. Everything's back to normal, then, right?" 

There is a bitter note to Kay's voice by this point that Meldrick picks up on, but he says nothing, and she goes on again. 

"I hate this," she says, her voice still muffled by her hands. "I should be out there trying to find who did this to him, not sitting around shifting through this damned _paperwork…_" 

She looks up, then, and he isn't surprised to see that her face is more than just a little bit red, but she remains silent, and so does he, because there isn't anything left for either one of them to say…at least, not yet. 

When he holds his arms out, wordlessly and not caring whether anyone chooses to look at them to see what they're doing, a half-smile crosses Kay's face, and she allows herself to lean into the embrace. 

They stay there that way, until a knock on the glass warns them that someone from the hierarchy is coming around, to see where they are. 


End file.
